Robert Gastaldo will lead an online presentation called, Fire and Fossils: When Maine First Burned, hosted by Merryspring Nature Center, on Tuesday, Feb. 6, at 12 p.m. 

The North American continent, similar to other parts of the planet, has experienced significant wildfire activity over the past years, according to Merryspring, in a news release. Yet wildfire, a natural means by which ecosystems operate, hasn’t always been a part of Earth history. The first fossil evidence of it is about 430 million years ago in the Silurian Period when plants colonized land and atmospheric oxygen levels exceeded around 15%. Scientists have proposed that oxygen levels decreased below the fire window in the following Geologic Time Period, the Devonian. The Middle Devonian has been called the “charcoal gap.” New evidence of charcoalified fossil plants from the Trout Valley Formation, exposed in Baxter State Park, demonstrates that conditions for wildfire prevailed during this time, even though the landscape was covered by low-growing plants that are not prone to being preserved as charcoal.

Today’s talk will delve into the history of wildfire in deep time, discuss the conditions necessary for fire during the early history of the planet and how that evidence is acquired, and illustrate that Maine has continued to experience wildfire for several hundred million years.

Professor Gastaldo is the Whipple-Coddington professor emeritus in the Department of Geology at Colby College. He joined the college’s faculty in 1999 and continues on an “active retired” status as he continues to investigate wildfire history in the Devonian rocks of Maine and Maritime Canada with funding from the National Science Foundation.

He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and the Paleontological Society, a Gilbert H. Cady Awardee from the Geological Society, and a Forschungpreistrager awardee from the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung in Bonn, Germany. His research has taken him to various parts of the world spanning geographies from Xinjiang Province, western China, to the Karoo Basin, South Africa, to coal basins throughout central Europe, and the jungles of Borneo.

After leaving the classroom, he and his wife moved from Central Maine to the coast.

This talk is part of Merryspring’s Online Winter Talk series, co-sponsored by Camden Riverhouse Hotel. Online Talks are held as Zoom webinars.

Please click the link below to join the webinar:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81734292725?pwd=lXAeIS8Y5Swe01jQDt4IHaSQrQWnLQ.-FtxdOX4UjztRSFN

Passcode: 107566

The link to join each webinar can also be found on the Merryspring Facebook page or website, or by emailing a request to info@merryspring.org.

Online Talks are open to everybody, free of charge.

Note: If you have not received your requested Zoom link by 11 a.m. on the morning of the talk, please email info@merryspring.org.

Merryspring currently does not record nor distribute its Tuesday Talks.

Merryspring is your community nature center offering walking trails, cultivated gardens, wildlife, and ecology and horticulture educational programs all year round. The park is located at the end of Conway Road, just off of Route 1 in Camden behind Hannaford Shopping Plaza. For more information on this program, please contact info@merryspring.org or call 207-236-2239.